Self-other Relations Research Articles

Responsivity and Responsibility in Responsive Environments: Art and Interactivity on a Rupturing Planet

Abstract The late 20th Century artform Responsive Environments comprised interrelations between artist, artwork and audience, wherein responsivity and responsibility to an other, be it the social and/or physical environment of the artwork, could be tangibly evoked. Currently, such self-other understanding has become existentially critical, as the ecological and climate crisis collide with a new dearth of understanding concerning human-ecology and human-human responsivities and responsibilities. This article considers how Responsive Environments offered a unique means for exploring responsivity and responsibility between artist, artwork and audience, and considers what the debates it once evoked might contribute to self-other relations in an age of human-induced planetary rupture, climate crisis, and mass extinction.

IPR forum on Chih-yu Shih’s intervention on the relational turn in IR

AbstractI read Shih’s intervention as an invitation to pay attention to relationality in not only ontological but also epistemological terms. I begin by observing that even those bodies of scholarship that focus on relationality are not always aware of our connectedness in terms of the production of ideas and knowledge about how the world works. It is essential, I argue, that studying the ways in which we are connected does not remain focused purely on material usurpation (historical materialism) or self-other relations (feminism, post-structuralism) but also encompasses the production of ideas and knowledge. Brought into an IR discussion, this is about the production of our ideas and knowledge about how the world works, which is best captured by Edward Said’ distinction between ‘origin’ versus ‘beginning’ of ideas. Whereas looking for the ‘origin’ of ideas assumes a singular source, an exploration of ‘beginnings’ takes as its starting point the eventuality that there exist multiple sources across time and space, and focuses on the study of relations of give-and-take and learning between world’s peoples.

Struggle Over Rights and Duties at Work: Storylines and Discursive Self-Other Positioning in Workplace Bullying Stories

This study examines the phases and dynamics of workplace bullying (WB) as a social positioning phenomenon within moral orders. Applying the positioning theory (PT) and the relational model of WB, the study analyses 136 written online stories of WB, utilizing narrative analysis of positioning in self-other relationships. The findings, limited to the perspective of the bullied (targets), identify four distinct storylines of WB that involve different forms of positioning: (1) the loss of health and ability to work, (2) passive acceptance of bullying, (3) unresolved conflict, and (4) active opponent in bullying. These findings shed light on the development and variations in WB storylines regarding the target, perpetrator, and work community, with a focus on the organizational and interpersonal power dynamics associated with WB. Furthermore, each WB storyline emphasizes the diverse strategies employed in response to WB and the various paths WB can follow over time.

Southeast Asia. Signs of deference, signs of demeanour: Interlocutor reference and self-other relations across Southeast Asian speech communities Edited by Dwi Noverini Djenar and Jack Sidnell Singapore: National University of Singapore Press. 2023. Pp. ix + 260. Bibliography, Index.

Southeast Asia. Signs of deference, signs of demeanour: Interlocutor reference and self-other relations across Southeast Asian speech communities Edited by Dwi Noverini Djenar and Jack Sidnell Singapore: National University of Singapore Press. 2023. Pp. ix + 260. Bibliography, Index.

Toward a Phenomenological Understanding of Internet-Mediated Meme-ing as a Lived Experience in Social Distancing via Autoethnography

As the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent social distancing measures have rendered online communication a “new normal” in the post-pandemic era, the production and consumption of internet memes have also emerged as a significant communicative paradigm in this context. However, academic discourses on internet-mediated meme-ing have tended to focus on socially oriented macro-perspectives with a pursuit of positivistic objectivity, leaving the experiential and subjective aspects of “everyday internet-mediated meme-ing” vis-à-vis individuals in a lifeworld less explored. To address this gap, this study uses structured vignette analysis (SVA) coupled with individual-oriented phenomenological reflexivity to elaborate on how internet-mediated meme-ing reveals itself as a meaningful lived experience for a “solitary conscious self” in the overall context of social distancing. It seeks to demonstrate the phenomenological applicability of the SVA as an autoethnographic method as well as highlight the individual-oriented phenomenological substantiality of meme-ing that involves self-other relations in social distancing.

Wisdom and the Other: Responsiveness in development between the egocentric and xenocentric style

This text networks contributions from three disciplines: phenomenological-philosophical perspectives on the Other, current discussions in wisdom research, and developmental models of social perspective-taking. The common theme is the concept of the “other,” which is ambivalent, because, on the one hand, it may produce othering that can be the entry point into vicious circles of xenophobia, hate, and annihilation, but the Other may be the source of responsiveness and wisdom, on the other hand. A deeper understanding of responsiveness in the self-other relation results from a reading of Waldenfels’ philosophy. This sharpens the perspective on wisdom emerging from the relation to the Other, for which the neologism “xenosophia” is suggested, which supports the view that wisdom as xenosophia and xenophobia are opposites. The implications of Waldenfels’ responsive phenomenology for wisdom research are exemplified for two key concepts, intellectual humility and perspective-taking. Finally, for a developmental perspective on responsiveness to the Other, a typological model is proposed with reference to models of social perspective-taking in the tradition of Piaget and Selman. The proposed typology includes four styles of responsiveness: the egocentric, conventional, negotiatory, and xenocentric style. Implications for research are discussed.

REFERENSI INTERLOKUTOR DALAM PERCAKAPAN PADA PODCAST CLOSE THE DOOR

This study examines interlocutor reference in conversation on Close the Door podcast hosted by Deddy Corbuzier. The data search of this research consist of 116 instances of interlocutor reference. The theory used in this paper is the address terms proposed by Brown and Gilman (1960) as well as Sign of Deference, Sign of Demeanour; Interlocutor Reference and Self-Other Relation written by Dwi Noverini Djenar (2022). The aim of the study is to describe interlocutor reference in coversation on the podcast. Based on initial observations, it appears that the interlocutor reference used in speech sequences varies. Therefore, further research is needed to provide a picture of interlocutor characterisctics on the podcast. The results show that speaker use polite and familiar interlocutor references for the same conversational partner in the same speech sequence. For example, speakers use interlocutor reference such as Mr. Nadiem makarim, Elu, Bro Bos, and Brother in the same speech sequences. In addition, the use of interlocutor rreference such as Gus, Gus Yaqut, and Andain the same speech sequences was also found. The use of diverse interlocutor references indicates deferential relationship among speakers. Deferential relationship in conversations refer to the strategies used by the speakers to show respect, politeness, and familiarity to their conversational partners.

Mutual desecuritization as a model of détente? Foreign policy change in the US-Cuban dyad

In foreign policy dyads characterized by enmity, mutual desecuritization can serve as a crucial asset for détente. But how does “the way out of the emergency mode” function, considering mutual securitizations over decades? Embarking from theoretical insights provided by second generation scholars on securitization and desecuritization studies, the authors generate a theory-based model of détente for dyads. This analytical tool contributes to the study of the dissolution of historically grown, mutual (re-)securitization processes in interstate relations. By clarifying the impact and functioning of the four desecuritizing modes (replacement, silencing, change through stabilization, and rearticulation), our model allows us to trace dynamics of change and assess the sustainability of détente. Especially mutual desecuritization as rearticulation has the potential to substantially change the self-other relation with effects on the social structure of a foreign policy dyad. The heuristic case study of US-Cuban relations serves as a prime example of a complex dyad of enmity which became a subject of change due to the Obama–Castro diplomacy in 2014. The study on US-Cuban foreign policy issues before and after 2014 helps to sharpen our understanding of dynamic securitization and desecuritization processes. The overall analysis demonstrates that the modes of desecuritization during the Obama–Castro diplomacy lifted the process of détente to a new and unprecedented level.

Social Attitude Towards a Robot is Promoted by Motor-Induced Embodiment Independently of Spatial Perspective

Humans can enter into social relations with robots through different spatial perspectives. In the telepresence perspective, the human sees through the eyes of the robot. In the face-to-face perspective the human faces the robot and interacts in a self-other relation. During robotic telepresence, we have shown that embodiment into robots can be promoted by reciprocal and synchronous stimuli in the form of intentional movements or passive tactile stimulations. Here we investigate the impact of different spatial perspectives coupled to these sensory-motor manipulations on human subjects’ social perception of robots. Through a series of experiments, we demonstrate that independent of the telepresence vs. face-to-face self-perspective, the sense of agency as induced by synchronous human-robot movements is crucial for generating positive changes of robot acceptability. We suggest that motor intentionality most clearly influences our social perception of robots.

Quiet Ego Intervention Enhances Flourishing by Increasing Quiet Ego Characteristics and Trait Emotional Intelligence: A Randomized Experiment.

The quiet ego—a personality construct characterized by empathy, inclusivity, non-defensiveness, and growth-mindedness in self-other relations—correlates positively with varied health markers. There is also emerging evidence that quiet-ego-based interventions may have a positive impact on health-related outcomes. However, no research has examined whether such interventions promote psychological flourishing and through what mechanisms. We addressed this gap with a randomized longitudinal experiment, hypothesizing that a quiet ego contemplation would improve participants’ flourishing and that the link between the intervention and flourishing would be mediated by higher trait emotional intelligence (EI). Using Amazon MTurk, we randomly assigned 75 participants to a 3-session intervention or control condition. As hypothesized, participants in the intervention condition reported higher trait EI scores that, in turn, elevated their flourishing. Results extend the causal benefits of brief quiet ego interventions to psychological flourishing. Given the study’s context during the COVID-19 pandemic, the findings may have implications for mitigating the negative impact of the pandemic.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10902-022-00560-z.

Playing with emotions: emotional complexity in the social world of elite tournament bridge

The concept of emotional complexity is vital to theorising emotions in late modernity. Building from decades of ‘emotion management’ research, it captures how emotions are increasingly an object for individual self-management and reflection. Using Goffman’s dramaturgy as a framing for emotions research in sport and leisure, this article contributes to understanding emotional complexity in practice using the dyadic pursuit of the mind-sport bridge as a case study. The elite social world of bridge is an emotionally charged setting, where top players use emotion management to improve performance over many decades. Through in-depth qualitative interviewing with 52 elite players from the US and Europe, the article outlines contextually specific experiences and performances of emotion. Players engage in processes of reflexive and instrumental self-other relations, which change over time as part of the experience of emotional complexity. Successful emotion management can foster positive relationships between bridge partners, but simultaneously players also regularly fail to manage their own emotions. This suggests that emotions are only ever partially instrumentalised, especially in emotionally complex contexts.

Edward Albee’s Theatre of Testimony: Response Ethics in At Home at the Zoo

This paper examines response ethics in At Home at the Zoo, concentrating on the self-other relation and its ethical implications. Albee’s decision to revisit the 1959 duologue The Zoo Story to flesh out the character of Peter results in a nuanced portrayal of his selfhood vis-à-vis others. The two-act play knits together a series of intricately structured face-to-face encounters culminating in Jerry’s death, presenting the epiphanic moments of the call of the other. In these moments, the face qua the absolute alterity of the other appears as a traumatic demand that disrupts the solipsistic self, as exemplified by Jerry’s forsaking of desire for recognition. Peter’s failure to acknowledge others’ demands looms large in his interactions with people, engendering Ann’s frustration and Jerry’s desperate attempts to make contact with him. Jerry’s testimonial storytelling and ritualistic death is presented in such a way that both calls for and prefigures his transformation into an ethically responsible person. In this sense, the play explores the importance of response-ability. This essay concludes that Albee mobilizes the audience’s ethical vigilance by rendering the spectators witnesses to the play.

Writing around War: Parapolemics, Trauma, and Ethics in Ukrainian Representations of the War in the Donbas

The article considers a range of literary texts about the war in Donbas and argues that one of the primary representational strategies employed by Ukrainian writers has been the use of “parapolemics.” The article operates with Kate McLoughlin’s definition of this term as a focus on the “outskirts” of armed conflict, but also relates the idea to concepts drawn from trauma studies. While, on the one hand, the use of parapolemics may be a way of avoiding direct representation of wartime violence and death, the opportunities it affords are extremely valuable: focusing on the “backstage” of war and eschewing direct representation of violence allows writers to explore otherwise marginalized, and highly complex, dimensions of wartime experience. At the same time, connecting the parapolemic approach to ideas taken from trauma theory, particularly relating to empathy and responsibility, allows us to understand how parapolemics provide a way of reflecting both on the ethics of representing war and the of self-other relationships that arise in wartime.

Embodying the Dance Rehearsal: The Time, Space and Situatedness of Dance Making

ABSTRACT One of my principle aims as a dance educator is to cultivate somatic-based learning environments so that students develop, integrate, and hone a holistic, embodied sense of self. In order to achieve this objective, I strive to help students connect their movement to their ongoing thoughts, sensations, and perceptions. In this article, I describe the work that I have developed in relation to M.M. Bakhtin’s dialogism and the practice-based approach of F.M. Alexander. I suggest that while these objectives are readily attainable in dance technique classes and somatic-specific courses, the process is decidedly more challenging during the dance rehearsal. In an effort to design a somatic-based learning environment that supports the rehearsal process, this article describes work on self-other relations and the conveyance of meaning through embodied movement, with an eye to creating an approach to the rehearsal process that focuses on embodiment and dialogism.

Students’ Sensemaking of Self-Other Relations in Malaysian Higher Education Institutions

This paper discusses how Malaysian university students relate to the culture of others on campus based on sensemaking. More specifically, it articulates the sensemaking idea of self-other relations in which the individuals make sense of their experiences as they interact with others, how they view others around them and the others’ responses through socialising and their reflections of such acts. The paper is driven by the idea that to be effective global citizens, students should acquire intercultural competence by understanding their own social acts through interacting with others. Such competence is witnessed and enacted during interactions with culturally diverse others. The interactions are often taken for granted given that these acts are observable only among the interlocutors. The self-other understanding in interpersonal interaction requires people to understand not only what is said and meant in the process but also how to display proper conduct in performing the acts. Drawing from a series of focus group interviews with students in three Malaysian universities, the findings reveal that these students comprehended interaction with others using the language that reflects mindful acts, varied accommodating moves and appropriate cultural mannerisms. Such findings reflect the students’ meaning making of the interactions. It reveals the ways in which the students make sense of how the interactions influenced them and the conversant partners. The paper provides some implications including the need to embrace proper communication competencies in intercultural interactions in the campus and in other social or public spheres. Keywords: Sensemaking, self-other relations, mindful language, intercultural competence, Malaysia.

Assembling human empathy towards care robots: The human labor of robot sociality

This paper conceptualizes human to robot empathy as empathetic arrangements configured in caring spaces. Analyzing empathy towards care robots as arrangements comprising robots, spaces, discourses, bodies and institutions enables recognition of the way empathy is about self-other relationships while eschewing an understanding of empathy in terms of a reciprocal relationship between human and robot. Situating the therapeutic, zoomorphic robot, Paro and the health care support robot, Care-O-Bot as part of empathetic arrangements draws attention to how the cultivation of empathy towards robots governs and regulates patient sociality. In particular, it shows that these robots do not function as substitutes for human carers but instead are dependent on human labor if they are to deliver therapy ethically and effectively. They rely on the affective labor of the patient and the labor of carers and others in the arrangement.

Orí, Ayé and the ontogeny of society

ABSTRACT It is difficult for any scholar on Yoruba culture to escape contact with the extensive literature on Orí, a metaphysical, ontological predicate for the existence of human selfhood, and self-other relations. This is not only because much has been written on the subject by scholars of different disciplinary persuasions, but also because this scholarship claims to be advancing, a peculiar point of view that originates a new way of looking at situation in terms of certain local categories and possibilities of action. Yoruba belief that Orí is that to which other deities (for it could be raised as a deity) should defer: all, except God, the maker of all things. Thus, it is reverenced, because it is about the self and because it cannot be reduced to any position of inferiority in any human actions.

Examining authenticity in the native-speakerist context of EFL in Iran: a turn towards bi/multilingualism

ABSTRACT Native-speakerism is the main goal of the monolingual approach to language education. In an attempt to challenge native-speakerism as a dominant ideology in English language education, this study probed into language learners’ experience of authenticity through an existential framework, comprising the two concepts of resoluteness and self-other relations, which was derived from Heidegger's (1962) concept of authenticity in Being and Time. To collect data, a group of English language learners studying at Iranian state universities were investigated by the administration of semi-structured interviews. The analysis of data led to the emergence of three core themes: epistemological and ontological engagement, agency for response-ability, and the process of in-situ knowing. Indeed, the collected data demonstrated a shift of emphasis on authenticity from native-speakerism towards the realities of language learning where the possibility of being rendered capable can be provided, and space is offered for the integration of mainstream epistemology and learners’ ontology through in-situ knowing. More importantly, the existential interpretation of authenticity, proposed in our study, was revealed to be an inclination towards bi/multilingualism.

The entanglements which make instruments musical: Rediscovering sociality

A thing becomes a musical instrument by virtue of its use in a social context, a use of which its initial intended design (if it had one) forms only a part: sometimes a very small part. Drawing on the notion of the ‘performance ecosystem’ this papersuggests that instrument designers/makers working with digital technologies might fruitfully attend further to the social contexts/constructs that characterise every level of musicking. It looks at the emergent, situated co-development of player, instrument and environment, suggesting that humans habitually use instruments to sense out, test and probe the possibilities of self-other relations in dynamic, mutually-engaging, and often playful and improvised behaviours.1 11The entanglements (see e.g. Hodder, 2012) of the title are therefore the complex network of interrelations between objects, humans, environments, histories and ideas. Such co-dependencies may operate irrespective of physical or historical distance, and though pervasive may also be temporary or unpredictable.?>

Host self-esteem in volunteer tourism

This research explores the host experience of volunteer tourism and presents a case study of local community farmers in the San Miguel Escobar Cooperative near Antigua, Guatemala. In this study, we sought to understand the adoption of role identities by cooperative farmers in their interactions with volunteer tourists and how this affects notions of self and self-esteem. Borrowing from prominent identity scholarship through the last few decades, we examined the proposition that, through the volunteer tourism experience, the host is able to build efficacy- and worth-based self-esteem. Twelve photo elicitation interviews were conducted with coffee-farming members of the Cooperative. Our paper describes and analyzes the farmers’ journeys through the various roles they engaged in with the visitors. The hosts’ experiences proved to be a journey that bred feelings of nervousness and fear, but positive views of the self and improved self-esteem emerged in the analysis. The results demonstrate the importance of micro-sociological empirical studies of role identities and self-other relationships in volunteer tourism and contributes towards theory building as well.